Why Marco Rubio needs philosophy

496588556.jpg MILWAUKEE, WI - NOVEMBER 10: Presidential candidate Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) smiles while giving closing remarks at the Republican Presidential Debate sponsored by Fox Business and the Wall Street Journal at the Milwaukee Theatre November 10, 2015 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The fourth Republican debate is held in two parts, one main debate for the top eight candidates, and another for four other candidates lower in the current polls. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)(Photo: Scott Olson)

My immediate reaction was to want to correct his grammar: "Fewer philosophers." You see, before I was a philosophy major, I was an English major.

But now I'm chair of Wayne State University's philosophy department, and thus familiar with the sort of "philosophobia" conveyed in Rubio's quip. Each year during the college's open house, I watch frightened parents eye their teenagers as they approach my department's information booth. "Step away from that table," I imagine them saying, "and go talk to those nice people in engineering."

I smile to myself, knowing that I’ll have the opportunity to brainwash their precious engineers in my professional ethics class, crushing any dreams of financial success. Bwahaha!

Kidding aside, Rubio's claim about income is just wrong, as fact-checkers quickly noted last night: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, college and university philosophy and religion teachers earn an average annual wage of $71,350, compared to $40,040 for welders.

But the problem with Rubio’s quip goes beyond stereotypes of philosophers as penniless and unkempt. He’s also employing some really bad logic, something anyone trained in philosophy would notice.

His argument appears to be that if one profession makes more money than another, we need more members of the first and fewer of the second. But that’s a non-sequitur. Senators make more money than sanitation workers, but we definitely need more sanitation workers than senators.

To put the point another way: Whether a job is in high demand is a different question from whether it’s lucrative. (Making clear distinctions: It’s what philosophers do!)

Now, it’s true that the market for professional philosophers — typically, college and university professors with PhDs — is limited, although wonderfully rewarding for those of us fortunate enough to find employment. But that's not what most philosophy majors are aiming to do. Instead, they plan to use the critical thinking and communication skills they learn through philosophy to enter a wide variety of other demanding and lucrative fields: law, business, journalism, even medicine.

Philosophy majors have one of the highest acceptance rates to medical school of any major. They achieve the second-highest average of any major on the LSAT, used for admission to law school, and the fourth-highest average on the GMAT, used for admission to business school — higher than majors in business, economics, finance, marketing or management.

None of which is to say that there aren’t more lucrative majors than philosophy (including, notably, engineering). But financial success, while important, is not the sole measure of a person — another point we emphasize in philosophy.

And that may be the most distressing part of Rubio’s quip. By mocking philosophy, and the humanities more generally, he devalues the pursuit of wisdom: the critical scrutiny of our fundamental beliefs and convictions; the quest to understand the world and our place in it, the exploration of great ideas about reality, knowledge, and value. Judging from our current political scene, we need more of that pursuit, not less.

In that spirit, the Wayne State Philosophy Department invites everyone to join us this Friday, Nov. 13, at 4 p.m. in the Community Arts Auditorium, when internationally renowned philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah will speak on "What is the Point of the Humanities?" for our 18th Annual Seymour Riklin Memorial Lecture. The lecture and reception are free and open to all.

Even welders.

John Corvino, PhD, is professor and chair of Philosophy at Wayne State University, and the author of numerous works on ethics, marriage and sexuality.